Month: February 2015

With the advancing calendar, spring is right around the corner. With that comes the decision about what to do for Spring Break – go home, look for a summer job, or with the new-found freedom of college take the first college spring break trip.

There are more than enough tales of famous and infamous spring break experiences, some of which you may be able to recite yourself. We even have access to television shows documenting the escapades of raucous students tossing logic, good sense, and sometimes their very selves to the wind for a few days of “letting off some steam” to cope with the demands and pressure of the daily grind.

As any regular reader of CP101 will tell you, I’m typically finding any tact I can find to lean us toward new ways to wonder, look at, or consider the work we each still need to do around “showing up well” in our closest and most intimate relationships.

I have on a couple of occasions mentioned the work of Brene Brown who has spoken and written extensively on the topic of vulnerability and shame (the primary focus of her research). Her TED talks have topped the charts – one at over 18 million views – more than just hinting at her very accessible conversations on the topic, both as a researcher and as a wife, mother and human. http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.

I also subscribe to the interview series: On Being. A fascinating collection of interviews exploring the spiritual and human search. I listened recently as host Krista Tippett interviewed Brown on the topic of Vulnerability as an essential component of Courage; both of them modeling the difficulty and desire to explore the myths and deep truths of what it looks like to, as Brown seeks to expand, live wholeheartedly.

There is a specific part of this related to parenting that I find to be completely resonant with what I have speaking to for a long time. So, I’d like to encourage you to take the time, with your parenting partner and/or with you daughter/son, to sit down and listen to the truths explored here.